TV

Clone
1x01 Alive
Oh dear, what's with all that poorly-dubbed laughter? Especially as it isn't even put on all the gags. Most of which were distinctly over-written, it must be said; and most of those that weren't were underwritten. It's almost good, at times, though never as good as it could be. Fingers crossed for improvement.

Heroes
3x07 Eris Quod Sum

Lead Balloon
3x01 Gas

Spooks
7x05 On the Brink
This week's plot is partially borrowed from the news, partially borrowed from Casino Royale. Also, I watched it when it was on! Hurrah! Though, it was on BBC Three last week, so...

Non-Fiction

Story by Robert McKee
Chapters 17 - 19
Fade Out [the end]
A damn useful book. Highly recommended for anyone attempting or interested in screenwriting.

Articles

Final Secret Crisis Invasion - But at What Cost? by Newsarama Staff
(from Newsarama.com)
Comics can be seriously ludicrous. This year, the two major publishers have each had major 'events', spanning new titles, miniseries, and issues in existing books: Secret Invasion for Marvel and Final Crisis (what's the betting that'll turn out to be a misnomer?) for DC. Obviously buying all the various issues would be very costly, but as they're doled out month by month over a year (or more) it can be easy to miss just how much one is spending. And the totals it would cost a dedicated comic fan to buy all of the relevant stuff? $378.78 for Secret Invasion, $135.08 for Final Crisis (or up to $317.56 if you include relevant prequel series published in 2007). It's because of things like this that I don't buy comics.

Getting Into The Graveyard Book With Neil Gaiman by Zack Smith
(from Newsarama.com)
Neil Gaiman discuss this & that, including why we won't learn much about his forthcoming two-issue Batman story -- titled Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? in tribute to the famous Alan Moore Superman story -- until it hits shelves.

Quantum of Solace Sets Bond Box Office Record With $70.4 Million Debut by Devin Zydel
and
James Bond Finds Solace At International Box Office For Third Straight Weekend by Devin Zydel
(from CommanderBond.net)
Quelle surprise. And it's expected to continue to do very well, even in the UK, where despite a lot of negative reaction it's only dropped 41% of business into its third week (while that might sound a lot, it really isn't).
The focus on the US by Bond fansites amuses or annoys me alternately, considering Bond is a British character in fairly British films who's always done a lot better in the rest of the world than he has in the US -- when most films were getting 50% of their total from the US and 50% the rest of the world, Bond was doing more like 40/60 (respectively), if not higher. Ah well, you can never escape the Americans' overdeveloped sense of self importance.

SFX 177 Preview: Red Dwarf News by Dave Golder
(from SFX)
Teeny tiny snippets of new info on the forthcoming Red Dwarf specials. The new issue of SFX (which this is obviously taken from) is out on Wednesday, so there may be more then. (It also has some form of huge Watchmen feature. Yay!)

Watchmen – First Look by Jayne Nelson
(from SFX)
Absolutely bursting with spoilers -- including about changes they've made, so even people who've read the book may wish to skip this one.

Websites

A highly amusing exchange on IMDb's Yes Man boards. Here's a direct link to the relevant three posts, but I'll quote them here for the sake of ease (slightly edited for clarity and linkage):

bobthegrinch:

This is actually based on the book Yes Man by Danny Wallace... It really is an excellent book, I highly recommend it, but this film looks like typical Hollywood comedy garbage.

amc001:

The Hollywood movie machine produced Trading Places, Groundhog Day, The Big Lebowski. All good comedies. But I agree that the typical Hollywood comedy is garbage.

bobthegrinch:

That's why I used the word "typical".

"lol".

100 Films update

It is, once again, over a month since I last posted an update from my other blog, 100 Films in a Year. There have been numerous reviews posted there since then -- including one of Quantum of Solace, just 17 days after I actually saw it -- so here's a summary of them:

from 2008...

After the Sunset (2004)

Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

Casino Royale (2006)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Hitman: Unrated (2007)

The Invasion (2007)

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Shoot 'Em Up (2007)

St. Trinian's (2007)

Stay (2005)

Zodiac (2007)

Also...

Inside-Out (a short)

Quantum of Solace also means that I finally have a "Q" in my collection (unlike the film! Haha!) Only "X" and "Y" to fill now -- damn having seen all the X-Men films! (Well, I suppose there's the unwieldily-titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine to look forward to next year.)

from 2007...

300 (2006)

Before Sunrise (1995)

Before Sunset (2005)

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (2005)

Great Expectations (1946)

Miracles (1989)

Starter For Ten (2006)

Transporter 2 (2005)

There's still more to come from both years.

Poem of the Day: A Martian Goes to the Cinema

by Richard Nelson

Today's poem is by me!

Tasked with writing a poem in the genre of Martian poetry (see last Monday), I initially struggled for a topic before alighting on one I had plenty of ideas for. Much redrafting later, I'm pretty pleased with the result. The only bit that seriously bothers me is the title -- it completely gives the game away. I don't think it's hard to guess the subject, but the title ruins even that little piece of ambiguity. If anyone has any better suggestions they're most welcome.

In the dark, strangers sit
in forced silence, except
for the crunch of card balls.
The crowd fill their stomachs
for the endurance test:
avoid waste disposal
for two, or three, or more
turns, under assault from
loud sound and moving light.

Super-powered people --
who can change size at will
from moment to moment,
travel from place to place
in an instant -- compel
these silent endurers
to suffer emotions
they avoid, at all cost,
in life outside this room:
fear and violence and
death and pain and true love.

They can craft, from nightmare,
with silicon numbers,
impossible creatures;
mis-remember the past;
mis-predict the future;
and say Martians are green,
though clearly we are not.

And when the names of their
torturers scroll by -- so
slow, so many -- they rush
to the waste disposal,
to the safety of home,
in discussion of all
they endured, together.

For the observant (or, rather, the unobservant, as I'm pointing it out), the piece is written in trimeter -- i.e. three syllabic pairs per line. Much English speech naturally falls into pentameter -- i.e. five pairs per 'line' -- which may or may not having anything to do with us having five digits on each hand & foot, but I've decided that's why, and so as Martians only have three digits (of course) they would (semi-)logically speak with a deference to trimeter instead of pentameter. It's somewhat thin logic, I know, but good enough for me.

Tomorrow, poetry by someone who isn't me; or 'real poetry', some might say.

Watchmen full trailer!

Yes, yes, yes, and yes again. This looks nigh-on perfect.

Two wonderances:

In the comic, the group of heroes don't have a name -- the "Watchmen" of the title is more a concept and a reference to the famous quote, not the name of an actual group. So either the audio for the trailer has been cleverly edited to help ease selling the film (most people who haven't read it assume the title does refer to the group, which isn't unreasonable as most comics' titles do), or they've changed it so the group is called that. Personally, that's a change I can live with, but it'll annoy some.

Secondly, is it really wise to be releasing the full trailer for a film out in March now? That's three-and-a-half months away. Unless they've got a big plan up their sleeves, aren't the General Public either going to get tired of it or forget all about it long before the film itself arrives? Maybe they should learn some lessons from Doctor Who's publicity department.

Anyway, those points aside, it's absolutely brilliant. And it uses a Muse song. So go watch it here.

TV

Outnumbered
2x01 Episode 1
The first series of Outnumbered was one of the Best Things Ever and, thankfully, series two has set off at the same level of quality.

Spooks
7x04 A Chance for Peace
While I'm watching this series of Spooks at around the same time it's broadcast, I've only seen episodes on iPlayer so far -- meaning I've still not watched an episode of Spooks on first broadcast since 1x02, way back in May 2002! (I've spent the last year catching up on DVD.) And as it's technically shown first on BBC Three, and I'm watching at BBC One pace... well, there's always 8x01 (probably)...

Stephen Fry in America
Part 6 Pacific [series finale]

Top Gear
12x03 (16/11/08 edition)

Articles

5 Reasons To Skip Quantum Of Solace by Josh Tyler
(from Cinema Blend)
Like Quantum of Solace or not, these are five really bad arguments why it's really bad. Unintentionally very amusing.

Elisabeth Sladen (The Sarah Jane Adventures) Interview by Will Martin
(from Last Broadcast)
Among other Sarah Jane factoids, Ms Sladen reveals this snippet: "The joy now is doing the DVD commentaries, although unfortunately I’m not anymore due to contractual reasons with 2entertain, we couldn’t come to an agreement." Oh dear.

Bond from the Beginning #3: Goldfinger

The archetypal Bond film, and it's easy to see why: the unrelated pre-titles, the credits, the song, the girls, their names, the villains, the locations, the gadgets, the Q scene (actually not repeated similarly for at least 17 years), the score, the ultimately unfeasible plan... It doesn't have everything (see earlier for the poor puns, see later for the volcano bases and cat-stroking baldies), but it has enough that no Bond-summarising article can be written without noting its significance.

Personally, I've never fallen as deeply for Goldfinger as others have; it doesn't have the grit of From Russia With Love and it doesn't meet the ridiculous excess of You Only Live Twice. I find it to be less than the sum of its parts; but those parts are mostly so excellent that its still a greatly entertaining film, and, I'm sure, not undeserving of the adulation lavished upon it by so many.

post... on a Sunday?

Today is Sunday. Post is not delivered on a Sunday. That's just The Way Of The World.

But today, I got post. Today. Sunday. Sunday! And this from the same postal service I've had to complain to several times for delivering my post to the wrong address.

So, I'm not complaining -- especially as the delivery brought me my 900th DVD (more on that later) -- but I am rather surprised.

I mean... it's Sunday!

Bond from the Beginning #6: On Her Majesty's Secret Service

I used to proudly lay my allegiance with the fans who believe OHMSS is an underrated classic; now I'm not so sure, though I wouldn't say it's among the worst -- all told, it's a mixed bag.

The first third is an unusual (for Bond) love story, which unfortunately seems quite hollow after Casino Royale did the same thing so brilliantly. Finally the actual 'Bond film' gets underway, complete with proper spying... and a ridiculous kilt-based outfit. The final third holds all the action sequences: crammed into 40 minutes there's two ski chases, a toboggan chase, a car chase, a helicopter raid, a large gunfight and an avalanche; the latter is especially well realised. This unbalanced structure undoubtedly helps unbalance some fans' view of the film.

Elsewhere there's an effort to remind us this is the same series: the titles are full of clips from the previous films and there are numerous other references. While the reasoning behind them at the time is clear, we're now familiar with Bond's changing face and they're just intrusive. As the new Bond, Lazenby is certainly no Connery, but he could be worse. His performance helps sell the final scene, which is still incredibly sad (indeed, while Casino Royale's romance plot may be more convincing overall, the death scene isn't a patch on this).

The direction is largely fantastic (though there are some dire sped-up shots) and the score is perfect; the instrumental main theme is probably my favourite ever.

There's still a lot to be said about OHMSS, but my opinion (for now) is that it's neither as bad nor as great as most of fandom would claim.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats
7x11 (13/11/08 edition)

Merlin
1x09 Excalibur

Russell Brand's Ponderland
2x03 Education

We Are Most Amused
Comedy show for Prince Charles' 60th birthday. Split in half (or two-thirds and third, to be accurate) for no reason other than bunging The X-Factor in the middle. Bloody load of rubbish, that is. Though, if one's being generous, the split could be seen as a way to keep the adults-only material separate from kiddy-friendly stuff.

Films

Fist of Legend (1994)
[#77 in 100 Films in a Year 2008]
I hadn't intended to watch this, but wound up getting sucked into it after Children in Need. Apparently it's "regarded as one of the best martial arts films of all time, and almost universally viewed as Jet Li's best" (source: Wikipedia), but the dire English dub does its best to hide this. The fights are still good though.

Star Trek Trailer
This trailer isn't officially released online 'til Monday, but as it's attached to a certain major release that's just come out in the States there're some surprisingly good bootlegs online already. Like this one, for example. Hard to judge properly without being able to see it properly (though the quality's probably better than you expect), but, as someone who's not much of a Star Trek fan anyway, I remain unconvinced. But it looks like Simon Pegg will be good at least.

Non-Fiction

Story by Robert McKee
Chapter 16

Music

Hold Your Colour by Pendulum
and
In Silico by Pendulum

Having heard their great cover of Coldplay's Violet Hill on Radio 1's Live Lounge Volume 3 (the original version, incidentally, is comparatively mediocre -- just as I'd expect of Coldplay), I somewhat eagerly acquired Pendulum's two albums... only to discover they're rather dance-y and mostly not my sort of thing at all.

The more recent In Silico (trivia: the title was chosen as a riff on Nirvana's In Utero) is the better of the two. I only made it a third of the way through Hold Your Colour before giving up, while the other at least has a few decent tracks: Propane Nightmares, The Tempest, Mutiny, and perhaps Granite and 9,000 Miles.

This is probably because -- according to Wikipedia -- "[In Silico] represents a change in sound from the band's debut album Hold Your Colour, away from drum and bass, incorporating more rock and electronic influences." I suspect these are incorporated in a way that makes it seem a huge change to drum & bass fans, whereas to rock or electronic fans it just sounds like an above-averagely-pleasing selection of drum & bass tracks.

Articles

AMPAS Rejects Dark Knight Score
(from Studio Briefing)
"an uproar has now followed the decision of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's decision to disqualify the score of The Dark Knight because credited composers James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer were unable to establish that they were directly responsible for more than 70% of the music... The two had listed three others as composers on the official cue sheet... in order to qualify them for royalties. The Academy's music committee reportedly spent hours debating the issue, with several members arguing unsuccessfully that the score merited nomination notwithstanding the cue-sheet issue."

Quantum of Solace US Opening Day Haul Estimated At $27 Million by Matt Weston
(from CommanderBond.net)
"The numbers are yet to be confirmed, but it’s clear that 007 convincingly beat off competition from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ($8.1 million) and Role Models ($3.76 million). At $27 million, Quantum of Solace would have the 26th highest US opening day ever. The only 2008 release to top this opening would be The Dark Knight [obviously]... $27 million would place it above other 2008 big-hitters Sex And The City and Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. It would also place it above [frequent film of comparison] The Bourne Ultimatum." The last Bond film, Casino Royale, had an opening day of $14.7 million -- nearly half QoS's. It leaves the new release "on track to a weekend haul of approximately $70 million" -- the franchise's opening weekend record is held by Die Another Day at $47.1 million.

The Showdown: Wall-E Vs. Batman
(from Studio Briefing)
"While many industry observers are predicting that The Dark Knight on DVD will become the year's biggest video hit, a few others suggest that Disney/Pixar's Wall-E [sic] should not be overlooked. They point out that animated features have a long history of dominance in home-video sales and that Wall-e [sic] is one of the few that holds as much appeal for adults as it does for children. Meanwhile, websites that focus on high-definition fare have unanimously endorsed the Blu-ray version of Wall-e as the HD gold standard."

The thick Sharpe's Peril and why Jonathan Ross and Brand should stay by AA Gill
(from Times Online)
Belated commentary on the Ross/Brand/Sachs thing (I'm not even going to bother linking back to it any more), but, as regular readers know, I love this position on it -- especially as it has added Piers Morgan-slating, which is always welcome. Also, eventually, Gill gets round to his point -- slating the latest Sharpe. He's mostly wrong about that though.

"We will take some more risks and shake things up a little bit more." by Matt Weston
(from CommanderBond.net)
The great thing about fansites is that they often summarise interviews and articles from other sites, so you just get what's new or interesting instead of having to trawl through all the same old publicity fluff. Here, the best bits are comments from producer Barbara Broccoli: "In Casino Royale, the book, there was no Moneypenny or Q so that is why they are not in that story. And, in this follow-up, there didn’t seem to be a reason or a place for them. That doesn’t mean that they won’t appear later on. We made a decision to strip everything away. Some things will come back, some things won’t. Some things will come back in a different way. We will take some more risks and shake things up a little bit more and hope audiences are with us." Sensible, I think.
Also: "Hopefully at the end of Quantum of Solace, we have this ‘whole’ character [for Bond]. And now we can do what we want. I think in some way, he will go after the organisation [Quantum]. So in that sense, it may become a trilogy, but we haven’t really structured it that way." Super. And what else will be back? "I don’t want [Judi Dench] to leave. She keeps threatening to leave but I will not let her!" Good girl. Anything further? Gadgets, apparently! "The trouble is, everyone has gadgets. We will need to come up with a few that have not been invented by the Sony Corp!" Good luck!

TV

Children in Need 2008
Hurray! I love Children in Need. Even when it's below-par (and, let's face it, it's well past its best -- it's mostly music these days, with no natty 3D or Smell-o-Vision gimmicks and very few original sketches or whatnot) it's still entertaining, still has its moments, and, of course, it's all for a good cause. Plus anything with this much Terry Wogan has to be good. But this year was better than most -- highlights being Doctor Who and Top Gear/Ashes to Ashes -- so that was super.
[Watch it (again) in hour-long chunks on iPlayer.]

QI
6x01 Families [Children in Need special]
For those who don't know, each series of QI has an alphabetical theme -- i.e. series one was "A", series two "B", and so on -- making series six "F". So in that sense, this is at the end of series six; of course, being filmed more recently, it could be called 7x01. Rubbish, says I. Not that it matters, or anyone cares. Anyway -- it's all the better for having added Terry Wogan, who was (of course) brilliant. I love QI -- there's a Christmas special on the way, followed by series "G" in 2009.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
Edit: Oh, the confusion! I blame TV.com. Anyway, this is 6x01, not 6x11, because the (first?) 2009 series if "F".

Films

Fargo (1996)
[2nd watch]
I hadn't been intending to re-watch Fargo, but we watched about half of it (mostly from the first half, but also a few scenes toward the end) in my screenwriting module, analysing a certain aspect of screenwriting theory and how it appears in every scene. Unfortunately I don't have my DVD of the film with me to watch the rest.

Poem of the Day: The Pencil Case

by coolositymax

I never said all the stuff posted in this strand had to be 'professional' or 'published' or anything (I have no rules, remember) -- I may even post stuff by me at some point -- so here's a favourite of mine from the World Wide Web. I've always liked its simplicity and humour -- making it an especially good choice for a Friday, I think -- which works because of the rhyme and rhythm. Poetry doesn't have to be Deep, Complex and Meaningful to be good.

Pen, Pencil, Ruler,
Scissors, Paper, Glue.
Crayons, Staples, Eraser,
Pencil Shavings Too.

This poem is available online at deviantART. If you're a member, please comment (and fav, if you wish) there.

Unlike the rest of the blog, Poem of the Day will be taking breaks at weekends, so see you on Monday.